--When, after a series of struggles with the parliament, which
he had reluctantly convened, James died in 1625, Charles I. came to an
inheritance of error and misfortune. Imbued with the principles of his
father, he, too, insisted upon "governing the people of England in the
seventeenth century as they had been governed in the sixteenth," while in
reality they had made a century of progress. The cloud increased in
blackness and portent; he dissolved the parliament, and ruled without one;
he imposed and collected illegal and doubtful taxes; he made forced loans,
as his father had done; he was artful, capricious, winding and doubling in
his policy; he made promises without intending to perform them; and found
himself, finally, at direct issue with his parliament and his people.
First at war with the political principles of the court, the nation soon
found itself in antagonism with the religion and morals of the court.
Before the final rupture, the two parties were well defined, as Cavaliers
and Roundheads: each party went to extremes, through the spite and fury of
mutual opposition.
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